10 Facts About Mars
Mars has long garnered our imagination as a place we could migrate to. In this article, we take a look at 10 facts about Mars you definitely want to know.Mars is often described as a dead planet. This is, in fact, true. What is also clear is that it once had a live center like the planet Earth that died long ago. Because of this, the planet is often viewed as a future image of what Earth will look like when our molten center stops spinning and our magnetic field stops spinning. With this in mind, let’s get on to the top 10 facts about Mars.
- Mars contains the biggest known volcano in the solar system. While we talk about super volcanoes on the Earth like the one under Yellowstone, none of them even remotely compare. You could fit three Mount Everest stacked on top of each other into Olympus Mons, the volcano on Mars. It is so big that the base is larger in area that the state of New Mexico! Now that’s a volcano!
- Mars has two moons that are rarely talked about because they are small. The names are Deimos and Phobos. Phobos cicles the planet so fast that it does three full rotations in a Mars day. It is also slowly falling towards the planet. It is believed it will break up before it hits and give Mars a ring like seen on Saturn. Millions of years will pass before this happens.
- The Earth averages being 93 million miles from the sun while Mars averages 143 million miles. It takes Earth 365 days to circle the sun and Mars 687 days.
- Recent exploration has discovered ice crystals under the surface of Mars, which is so abundant it is believed the planet has enough ice on it to create oceans and lakes if it were melted. The ice is mostly located around the southern pole.
- Mars is called the Red Planet because of its red appearance. This is due to the high percentage of iron oxide in its soil. We know this substances as rust.
- We consider the Grand Canyon to be a huge geological feature on our planet, but it pales in comparison to Valles Marineris. This canyon on the red planet is deep and runs a length similar to the width of the United States.
- Mars is roughly 4.6 billion years old. This is the same age as the Earth, Saturn, Jupiter and other planetary objects in the solar system.
- Dust storms are a huge event on the planet. They can sometimes grow to such size and ferocity that they cover the entire planet.
- Mars is much less dense than the Earth. As a result, it produces only 38 percent of the gravity we experience. If you were to stand on the red planet, you would weight 62 percent less than you weigh now. For instance, a 100 pound person would weigh 38 pounds.
- Mars has a weak magnetic field. This means life on the planet as we know it has a very hard time surviving because it is exposed to radiation from the sun. It is believed that the planet had a strong magnetic field like the Earth millions of years ago and the planet looked much like Earth.
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